CHAPTER XII

Oh, how nice it was to be back in Bonn where the bus schedules and language are familiar! Regina was worried that "provincial Bonn" will bore us now that we've traveled so much. On Tuesday, I got to shadow at the Uniklinik, the university medical hospital here in Bonn. I was paired with an anesthesiologist for the morning. She was so kind in explaining what was going on during the two different surgeries. I was only there for the morning, but since it was all new, I learned a lot. The first surgery was a rather simple procedure. I walked in after they had completed all of the pre-op. He had two screws in his foot, and now they needed removed. The doctor simply made an incision and unscrewed them. In total, it took less than thirty minutes.

The second surgery was more interesting and more complicated. The patient had a fractured vertebrae disc that needed to be removed. Initially, I thought she was also getting screws out, but turns out those were there to stay. The pre-op itself was interesting too. For this procedure, there was a possibility of needing to ventilate only one lung. Thus, the anesthesiologist needed to insert a special double tube. It has two holes, but only one main branch that goes down the left side because of the angle. Then, one side could be cuffed and the outer tube clamped, ventilating only one side. The anesthesiologist showed me the print out for the initial blood and oxygen analysis. So for the surgery, the doctor created an incision right below the ribs. I couldn't see much of what was happening inside because of the angle from where I had to stand. But, I could see everything going in or out of it. Before any major steps, they would stop and extra from multiple different angles. The doctor had to break up the vertebrae and remove it. I initially thought each of these pieces were just adipose or connective tissue, but apparently they were bone chunks. Plates were then used to stabilize the vertebrae above and below the removed one. That's about all I saw before I had to leave.

For the weekend, I went with Darby, her parents, and a couple friends, all in an RV to Berlin for the weekend. We stayed at a camping site outside the city and rode the trains in for the day. Saturday, we spent a lot of time at the Jewish Memorial Museum. The museum was entirely underground and complemented the themes of the symbolic, artistically represented memorial above ground. The ground is covered in this grid of blocks that appear to be close to the same height from the outside, but actually the ground gets lower towards the middle. The museum followed specific Jewish families all throughout Europe and portrayed their stories throughout the war. Another room ran through specific names with short stories of Holocaust victims. Overall, the museum was very moving and thoughtfully completed.

We stopped in the Rittersport Schokowelt. Rittersport (“Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut.”) is probably my favorite German chocolate, and their chocolate world store had ALL of the flavors. I tried a couple that I haven’t seen in the grocery stores. We also stopped by the major landmarks, Brandenburger Tor, Checkpoint Charlie, and the Reichstag. 

Sunday, we spent on the outskirts of Berlin, near Potsdam. There is a park with two different palaces from the 1700s. There was both the Neues Palais and Sanssouci. Both were decorated ornately. There were giant gardens in between the two, filled with statues and fountains. I would love to see it in the summer months! My favorite room was the ballroom in the Neues Palais. The décor was not like anything I had seen before. The stripes on the wall were all made of see shells and sparkling things, so the walls not only had color, but also texture.

Another special part of this trip was meeting up with a foreign-exchange student my aunt hosted when I was little. I got to meet her and her sweet family. They met us for lunch and then showed us around Sanssouci the next day.

Random Takeaways

McDonald's can occasionally be a free RV park. Also, it is a solid option when WiFi is needed to submit assignments recently finished during the drive.

When cooking in an RV, the pepper is the first thing to get lost.

Families are fun even if they aren't mine.